Relationships, Representation, and the Balance of Power in P.G. Wodehouse\u27s My Man Jeeves, A Damsel in Distress, and Piccadilly Jim

This work will examine P. G. Wodehouse’s representations of relationships and power structure in My Man Jeeves, A Damsel in Distress, and Piccadilly Jim, which Wodehouse wrote during WWI. In each work, Wodehouse presents complicated relationships and causes readers to question the existing power structures. I will focus on the complex relationship between employers and employees as well as his representation of male and female guardians and their relationship to each other and their dependents. I will examine how Wodehouse uses the figure of the incompetent aristocrat and the clever valet or butler in order to question the assumption that the aristocracy should have more power than the serving class. I will then examine how he presents the older generation of women as inflexible and conforming to tradition, while he presents the men as submissive and less likely to act. Through his representations of characters, Wodehouse shows hints at anxieties his readers would have had and hints at the flaws in the power structures of British society